About Me

I edit both fiction and non-fiction and do a lot of Web content writing. I'm back in school now, earning my Master's degree, though not in English (I've switched my major).. The writing tips on this blog reflect my experience as an independent professional fiction editor. The book reviews reflect my love for reading and aren't always on the latest book. Instead, the book reviews reflect what I love and what I'm reading now. I hope you can find a new book or author to love among them and I hope the writing tips will help aspiring novelists. I usually update my blog on Sundays. "Your life story would not make a good book. Don't even try."
—Fran Lebowitz (1950-) US journalist/humorist
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Thursday, December 23, 2010

Today in Literary History - A Visit From St. Nicholas is Published

On December 23, 1823, the Christmas classic, “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (better known as “The Night Before Christmas”) was published anonymously in the Troy, New York “Sentinel.” It wasn’t until twenty years had gone by that Clement C. Moore claimed and was accorded authorship. Recent research by forensic literary critic, Don Foster, the man who correctly identified the author of Primary Colors, has cast Moore’s authorship in doubt, however.

Clement Moore was a strait-laced biblical scholar, a man who was, by nature, stern, harsh, and dour. In Author Unknown, Foster’s collection of literary whodunits, published in 2000, he offers much evidence that Moore was not the author of “A Visit From St. Nicholas” and that the true author was Henry Livingston, Jr.

Foster gives much of the “sleuthing credit” to Mary Van Deusen, who told Foster many stories of the Livingston children enjoying fireside readings of the now-famous poem at least fifteen years before its first newspaper publication, and Van Deusen also provided Foster with other Livingston lines, which, when compared with lines from “Moore’s” work, seem to indicate that Van Deusen and Foster are right.

Such Gadding – such ambling – such jaunting about!To tea with Miss Nancy – to sweet Willy's rout,New Parties at coffee – then parties at wine,Next day all the world with the Major will dine!Then bounce all hands to Fishkill must go in a clutterTo guzzle bohea, and destroy bread and butter....

Foster also says that Moore checked to make sure no one else was going to claim authorship of “A Visit From St. Nicholas” before he did, and he speculates that Moore is actually the author of yet another, lesser known Christmas classic, “Old Santeclaus,” which is sometimes titled, “The Children’s Friend.” “Old Santeclaus” first appeared in print in 1821, two years before “A Visit From St. Nicholas, in a sixteen page publication that contains the first drawings of the jolly, fat man we know as “Santa” today. (Prior to that time, “Santa” was known as “Father Christmas” or “St. Nicholas” and in the European tradition, especially the German, he was a skinny, ill-fed, old man who lived in the forest.